A few days ago I got confused — a not-uncommon state for me — about the distinction betweenconflateandconfound. Apparently my mind had conflated (merged) the two words and I was thus confounded (mixed up). Then yesterday by chance I learned a new word:treva, the obscure diacritical mark placed above a vowel to indicate that it should be pronounced independently from its predecessor, as in naïve or coöperate. A treva is also called a diaeresis— another exotic new-to-me word meaning "separation".

The treva looks identical to the pair of little dots that make a German umlaut. For my whole life I've been conflating those two symbols!